rushing to improve the bench this season is only a necessity if we have a legit shot at the title. Without a healthy Hayward, I don't see it. ECF and possibly the finals but beating GSW without Hayward in a 7-game series is just improbable.
Solution: wait til next year for natural improvements
- starters are Kyrie, Hayward, Horford and probably Brown. 5th starter is likely to be Tatum.
- Barring trades, bench becomes Smart (likely resigned to reasonable deal since his offense is still hit or miss), Rozier, Morris (hopefully finally healthy), Theis, Semi. That's not too bad provided there's a mix of 2 starters out there at a time.
Deep bench: C's 1st rounder, Yabu, maybe Lakers' first rounder.
Baynes has likely played himself into a deal larger than the MLE which would be all we could offer.
Bird and Allen may have the 2-way deals again.
Larkin and Nader are very likely gone.
C's have the MLE (if not Baynes) to pick up a decent bench guy or 2.
I'm more than ready to move on from Rozier because he's way too inconsistent and he doesn't have that knack to make big plays in close games that Smart does. The question becomes, who could we trade him for that would consistently contribute?